Les Liaisons Dangereuses
by v2point0
Summary: Shattered Glass. Politics are always played a little dirty. Optronix/Starscream SLASH


**Title**: Les Liaisons Dangereuses  
><strong>Rating<strong>: I'd say M, but it's sparksex, so... R?  
><strong>Genre<strong>: slash, angst, political foreplay, suspense maybe  
><strong>Characters<strong>: Starscream, Optimus Prime/Optronix  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: sparksex  
><strong>Other Notes<strong>: Submission for the LJ **primescream** contest, "Firsts". Based on this prompt: Shattered Glass, Prime's first request for Starscream to join his cause being handled with seduction before Prime reveals his true colors. May have deviated a little, buuuuut, I think I generally went with the concept. Um, I sent in two copies; one was wonky and other was fixed up, but gmail has been wonky as well, so this might be the derp one.

* * *

><p>"You're very naive, did you know that?"<p>

Starscream looked up from his cube, across the table. Optronix was watching him closely, a smile playing at his dark optics. The two sat alone in the small apartment, the noises of the world abandoned beyond drifting between them. "I'm not sure what you mean," the scientist replied a moment later, glancing back at his energon.

"It's not necessarily a bad thing," Optronix said. He rested his chin against a fist. "It can actually be quite adorable if worn correctly."

Starscream snorted. "I don't know if I should appreciate being called 'adorable,'" he chuckled. "It makes me feel like a hatchling again."

Optronix smirked. His digits stroked the edge of his cube. It was half full, whereas the scientist's was half empty. "Yet, depending on the situation, it can be very fatal," he stated. His tone had shifted; not a taunt, but something foreboding.

"I fail to see what you're getting at here."

Optronix sat back, engine giving a soft rumble. "I suppose being cryptic never got anyone very far," he said. He met the pale azure optics of the winged mech. "Have you read the news lately?"

Starscream blinked. "... Yes. Why?"

"Did you read the article on the riots in the mines?" the darker mech asked.

Starscream stroked his chin. "Mm, if I recall, the miners had their credits cut by ten percent. They rallied together at the senate's estate." He shrugged. "It hasn't been resolved, as far as I know. Security's got a handful."

"Yes. Ten miners were shot in the initial revolt," Optronix stated, "though they had shown no violence towards anyone."

Starscream frowned. "That's a pity."

Optronix's optics seemed to darken. "Pity, huh? I'm sure that's what they'd want to hear." His fingers clenched around the cube. "Pity."

"You know what I mean," the scientist mumbled.

"Well, then, do you remember the bust they made in downtown Iacon?" Optronix asked, raising a hand. "Apparently, a few politicians that-shalt-not-be-named had been running an underground drug operation. Selling Nequil narcotics in and outside Iacon." He squinted an optic. "How funny that a week earlier, they uncovered a smuggling operation just outside the borders of Kaon. And yet." He leaned forward again, resting chin to fist again. "And yet those arrested in the Kaon circle are now spending at least fifty cycles in jail, those apprehended in Iacon were just released from a ten orn stint in prison. Even though their operation had been on a much bigger scale than the novices trying to make a little credit."

Starscream thought a moment. He bridged his hands together, optics squinted. "It is rather unjust," he admitted. "A great flaw in our system."

"One of many, if you ask me," the dark eyed mech said. "Let's not forget the rival gang wars in Ployhex that cost the lives of twenty-nine persons, less than half of those actual gang members." His tone seemed to brighten in a way dripping with disgust. "Ah, and how about Senator Ratbat being caught up in that delicious little conspiracy involving a missing pleasure bot in Tyrest?"

Starscream frowned sadly. "What are you getting at here, Optronix?" he asked, voice solemn. "Is this why you called me to your quarters? To discuss the failings of our society?"

"Not entirely, no," Optronix replied, glancing at his cube. "I wanted to have a little intellectual conversation with the only mech I deem logical and smart enough to see optic to optic with me." The scientist was both confused, yet flattered. "You agree that our system is falling apart at the seams. Our politicians are becoming more and more corrupt as time goes on. Civilization is devolving into chaos in a slow drip. Yet no one seems to be doing anything about it." He grumbled. "Our energon resources are draining. We've been very careless with this planet and I fear we're on the brink of destruction."

"You said you were going to make a proposal regarding the energon shortage to Sentinel Zeta Prime yourself," Starscream stated. "As you very well may know, my colleagues and I have been hard at work developing a type of synthetic energon. We believe the intake of synthetic energon would be less than half of natural energon a Cybertronian would need to refuel."

"It's a brilliant idea, but it won't work," Optronix said.

Starscream's optic ridges furrowed. "Beg your pardon? We've made great advances in its engineering."

"For how many cycles now?" Optronix said. The scientist frowned. "You've told me you and your partners have been working on this formula for nearly ten cycles. Yet while you've shown some improvement in its development, you're just now at the half-way mark at mastering and controlling the substance."

"These things take time. We're altering the future of Cybertron. Of course it'll take cycles," Starscream insisted. "We just need the flow of funding to continue. That's where the real problem lies. If we don't have the financial support, all our work will have gone to nothing."

Optronix smirked. "You've every right to be nervous," he said. "There's a buzz going around the senate regarding your project. Some are debating canceling your funds."

Starscream scowled. "So many impatient politicians. I don't care if it _has_ been ten cycles, what do they expect?"

"Instant results, as the senate does not like wasting their time."

"Would they rather use the credits to buy out more land and ruin natural wildlife?"

"Our cities have become overpopulated," Optronix informed. "We continue to expand as a race."

Starscream sensed disgust in his tone. "There's no stopping that," he sighed. "Unfortunately, that means we must add on."

"The point is clear to see to anyone," the darker mech stated. "If we diminished half the population, the energon resources would have enough time to replete. We would not intake needless amounts as we do now."

"Yes, but that would be genocide," Starscream said firmly, optics fixed with his. "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Life as well." Optronix chuckled at that, as if it were some ironic joke. "We need to adjust and evolve to our surroundings and the vast changes in our ecosystem." He hummed thoughtfully. "There's a theory I have regarding changing our very structures. So we may become smaller, hence taking in lesser amounts of energon."

"Shrinking our race sounds like a page out of a science fiction zine," Optronix smirked, "when there's so many... easier ways to go about fixing our energon crisis and political problems."

"Oh? And pray tell. You never did explain what you were going to propose to Prime."

Optronix's optics squint, and he was quiet for a long, dragged out minute. He paused to take his cube and drink; Starscream could hear faceplating shifted aside as he took a swallow. When he lowered the cube, the plating was snapped back into place. "We have the means and technology to explore far distant galaxies, as you very well know."

"Yes."

"Then what is to stop us from seeking out new sources of energy?" Optronix suggested. The scientist considered his words. "There are so many worlds, so many planets we've charted, and yet they've come nowhere close to the amount that lay beyond the reaches of our knowledge." He sat forward, closer to Starscream. "Take for instance Xetaxxis. It is a flourishing society with mines said to be filled with pure energon. However, because of their petty war with Lanarq, we have been unable to search and harvest these mines without upsetting our neutral alliance with both planets."

"Then we must respect Xetaxxis and leave their resources untouched," Starscream added. "Unless there is some way we can compromise with both sides. Which would mean helping to build a peace treaty between the planets. Otherwise, we're labeled as an enemy if we don't." He shook his head with a bitter chortle. "Knowing Xetaxxis and Lanarq's longstanding violent, bloody history, it may just be impossible bringing the two together in peace."

Optronix didn't respond to that. "Tixlara," he said, and the winged mech was a little thrown off by the sudden change of subject. "Tixlara is a small planet, and its boasts a very tiny population of aliens. It has resources that can be harvested and converted into energon."

"Tixlara consists mostly of rain forests," Starscream said. "If we were to take too much, we'd severely damage the ecosystem. The inhabitants would find themselves in a great deal of trouble." He tilted his head. "Unless we can find a crossroads. Take some, give some. We can take what we can get without causing lasting harm."

"Tixlara's people are brutes, uncivilized and still living in the dark ages," Optronix stated. "Xetaxxis and Lanarq are destroying their own home worlds for the sake of a pointless war built on shaky grudges and ambiguous ideals lost long ago." He chuckled. "Do you really think these planets, these lesser beings, would come to an agreement with us? Would allow us access to their resources?"

Starscream's optic ridges knit together. "Then we've no choice but to move on to other venues," he answered. "As you said, there are literally millions upon millions of planets out there. Many with the materials we need to ensure the future of our home world. Certainly, we'll find planets uninhabited, and others with lifeforms who would be willing to compromise with us. We can help offer technology and knowledge in exchange for the energon. It's a fair trade, don't you think?"

"All my life," the darker mech said quietly, "I've been raised believing the strong should never lower themselves to the weak. That if you've the power, you should take it. For it is your right, as you have earned it."

"That's a rather brutish way of thinking."

"It may be, but I've a feeling it may also be the only route we can take in order to succeed in a mission involving extracting energy from other planets."

Starscream scowled. "You don't know that," he insisted. "And as I said, we can always compromise."

"Red tape, politics, uneasy alliances. These could take cycles and nothing set in stone can necessarily last forever if the elements have any say," Optronix said. He pressed a finger hard against the table. "As long as our future is in jeopardy, we do not care who we have to kill or what planet we must destroy to keep our own people and society alive. It's not unusual. When you're threatened, you sink to your base instincts to survive. And if we appear gentile and docile, there's a possibility people will believe we can be easily overthrown."

Starscream pressed his fingers to his temples, massaged. "I still don't see what you're getting at," he mumbled. "You're suggesting ideas and theories that would go against our very nature as a peaceful race. Since the dawn of our species, we have been fair and just with outsiders and considerate when it comes to their privacy and cultures."

Optronix's optics darkened. "Yet we seem to be falling apart. The darkness cannot always abide by our desires. We cannot will out our weaknesses. We can control them, that I agree, but we've started losing control. Dirty politicians, dying energon resources, mindless violence. And for what? Because we're too scared to rise up and change our society."

"There's nothing wrong with evolving," the scientist murmured, "but to do so by force would be... Well, we'd be no better than those dirty politicians and bribing rich folk." He bit the inside of his cheek. "I hope that... You are not considering anything that would possibly endanger our people and Cybertron..."

Optronix just chuckled. He pushed the cube aside and his faceplates retracted. His smile was revealed, something devious. Yet Starscream saw past the darkness, felt a hitch in his ember. The darker mech towered across the table, took the scientist's chin in his hand. Without a word, he pulled him forward, Starscream bracing shaky hands to the table as his cockpit pressed against the edge. When their lips locked, Starscream felt something like pressure building in his core release and let go. He shuttered his optics closed and leaned into the kiss. Optronix watched, kept his optics open and vigil, observed the scientist seemingly melt into his touch.

It felt as if Optronix placed an entire galaxy between them when he pulled back, let Starscream go. The scientist was still shivering; he didn't know why he wasn't used to this. It wasn't the first time they had kissed, or been intimate. Yet every time, every damn time, it felt like the first and he would never forget the powerful impression the darker mech had left behind. A force to be reckoned with; Starscream never did master the storm but always rode it out with no qualms.

Optronix now stood by the violet-eyed mech, swept a hand beneath his arm. "We've talked long enough," he purred. He helped Starscream to a stand, letting his hand smooth down to rest on his hip. "I was never good with words, you see. So, perhaps I should show you?"

A second later, Starscream was keening, his back smashed against the hard berth. He arched, head lulling back as he gasped, Optronix burying exposed lips against his throat. He bit into neck cables, not hard enough to draw energon, but enough to send Starscream's systems reeling with sensation. His ember gave a hard throb against the chamber doors, expecting, knowing, _needing_. Optronix ignored it, for now, let his lips trail to kiss along the hot canopy, digits pushing against metal creaking on either side of the scientist's waist.

Starscream offlined his optics. He could barely do anything more than wriggle. Optronix's expert hands found his wings, tracing the length and pinched the edges. They clattered and twitched in humming bird fashion. Paneling was shifting without his knowledge, exposing sockets and coils of circuitry down his torso and arms. Optronix sunk fingers into the open ports, dipped his glossa to trace the circular walls. Starscream gasped again, hands flying up; his fingers dug into Prime's head, kneading at the sensitive antennae perched like devil horns.

The darker mech's engines rumbled, rocking the scientist's chassis with vibrations. The click of his canopy alerted Optronix, raised his head. He pushed aside the glass door and its protective casing beneath. The chamber was aching, opened a sliver to reveal a pounding ember inside. It took a moment before Starscream realized what had just happened.

"You," he swallowed, surprised, "we've never..."

Optronix ran a finger across the ember housing, earning a shiver. "Why not? We've interfaced multiple times. Let's just... kick it up a notch." He dipped his head forward, nuzzled against the chamber. Starscream winced, one optic spotting the darker mech's own chestplates spreading open. "Besides, there's method to my madness."

Strangely, very strangely, Starscream found he was more hesitant than agreeable. Something did not sit right with this. With the ember peeking out of Optronix's chamber. It might have just been the setting. The air strangely cold outside their heating, warm chassis; the eerie noises of night and its sinister inhabitants. The moment did not feel right, and yet... Starscream swallowed and nodded.

Optronix smiled proudly. His hands began connecting the wiring, each established link sending an electric spark through their bodies. He knew this, was experienced in this method of interfacing. Optronix knew, however, bonding would be his first time. He did not tease or comment about it, thought it was rather "inspiring, since everyone is throwing their embers at the nearest and attractive person they find these orns." The scientist shivered as he waited for the initial onslaught of sensation he had never once experienced in all his vorns of life.

"Try not to let it consume you," Optronix murmured. He pressed a hand against Starscream's chamber. The white mech blinked up at him, confused, light headed. "What you see. What you see, I hope you will understand. Where my words have failed you." His hand slid from his partner's, lifted to push open his own chamber.

"I..." Starscream didn't know what to say, or what to expect. Should he be nervous? He licked his lips, fingers digging into the berth as Optronix moved over him. Their bodies flushed together, trying not to press too much weight on the other. With a mental command, the ember pushed itself from its housing and Starscream felt like a wave of raw energy just hit his system when their embers collided for the first time.

It hurt at first. The ember was not supposed to be exposed to large amounts of energy. Yet he had been told this was normal, especially for the first time. The ember would adjust soon enough, rationing out the energy it swallowed and released through his chassis; the connections between body and circuitry swelled as electricity coursed in loops through their systems. Starscream writhed, swayed back and forth, denta grit until he swore they'd break. He lifted his arms, shaking and heavy, closed them around Optronix's wide back.

Optronix began grinding in strides against his partner. Rolling their embers together. Warming up and comforting the untouched orb of lifeforce. Starscream breathed, hitched with every movement, rose and pushed back. But the further exposure to the ember, the more the cloud and dizziness washed from Starscream's vision. Not too long then, not too long, images were cruising behind his optics, through his CPU.

Optronix was talking to him. In a way only bonding could. He was showing him so many things, and none of them felt appropriate for such a wonderful first time. In fact, they were all rather depressing and shocking. Starscream saw riots, Cybertronians fighting Cybertronians, archive data of past wars and deceit and murder. Politicians wronging the people they defended and protected; theft and drugs and violence and forced sex. The darkest reaches of Cybertron in his head, all its shadows and its criminals and its flaws, playing like a movie in his processors.

Starscream felt sick, but he couldn't stop. The ache in his energon intakes was inferior to the intense sensation of their embers melding together and energy passing through wiring. He saw more, much more to his dismay. Optronix arguing with Sentinel, fighting off thieves and mechs who he... he was talking to? For what reason? Why associate- But as if Optronix sensed his paranoia, the image flipped to something new. Optronix preaching to a crowd of dozens, proposing the same ideas as the ones he discussed with Starscream.

Find new planets. Find new resources. Expand power across galaxies. Disable Vector Sigma until population could be controlled. Don't stand down, stand up, step upon the backbones of those who have wronged you, those who are weak. Weed out the inferior, cultivate the superior. Death is never the first resort but it is the best resort for those who choose to turn away or fight against him. Take what you want, no regrets, no apologies. We are the superior race, they are the weaklings. Tiny little organisms who pose no threat to their take-overs. Because Cybertron is dying; if they cannot save her, then they must find a new world. And why settle for just one planet? When they can conquer universes in her glorious name. Sacrifices would be necessary, that was all there was to it.

Starscream gasped, optics snapping open. He looked Optronix square in the eye, shock and horror on his face. Optronix stared back down at him, face unmoving, betraying no expression. He knew what his partner had seen. By the gloss over his optics, he did not like it. "I expected such," he murmured, pushed down hard. "Yet can you not see any logic behind my reasoning?"

The scientist swallowed. "You... You're insane." He should push him off, should escape, but his hands locked onto Optronix. "You can't...! You'd kill millions! G-Genocide!"

"One must dirty their hands for progress," Optronix crooned. He held Starscream's face in his hands, swept thumbs beneath those terrified, angry optics. "You can't expect peace without a little destruction."

Starscream hissed. "You-You don't want p-peace!" He gasped, hips rolling against the darker mech's. "Power! Y-You've corrupted y-yourself!" He winced, biting into his bottom lip. "Your good in-intentions have b-been spoiled r-rotten...!"

"You may be right," Optronix murmured. He pressed his ember down hard, could sense the overload approaching in the shaking, infuriated mech. "But that doesn't mean we don't deserve it. The power, the control."

Starscream heaved. "In... sane..."

Optronix frowned. "Pity. Sentinel agreed with my ideas," he grumbled. Starscream widened his optics. "However, I'm not one to share my glory with anyone. So when Sentinel insisted he take command of the operations, and credit for my hard work, well... Tomorrow, they might make a connection between our conversation and the fact he has gone missing."

Starscream jerked against him. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Perhaps this was a side effect of bonding. It confused and scrambled the thought processors. Maybe this was all an hallucination, an illusion. "You... killed Sentinel Z-Zeta?" Starscream croaked. He wanted to fight, but he was locked into place by his own damn pleasure. The waves of the darker mech were overpowering and pinned him down like a butterfly.

Optronix's own overload was steadily approaching. He looked Starscream straight in his optics again, said, "When we next meet, I will be someone else. Who I am now, but not who I was then; who I will become. And with all you've seen, I hope you will reconsider my proposal. It would be rather unwise to turn me down."

Starscream spat. "You...!"

"You won't remember much, I'm afraid. But it will haunt you like a shadow, my words echoing in your processors," Optronix purred. He brushed his lips to the scientist's who tried to turn his head away. "You'll come around, Starscream. I'd hate to see what would happen if you don't."

"I... can't... You... You must stop..."

"I'm afraid not. This is my fate, your fate."

"It-It's n-not my fa-fate!"

Optronix smiled pitifully. "It is, and you will accept it, soon enough. I'm afraid fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing."

Starscream was left helpless and disabled. Overload struck him hard, nearly knocking him offline. He cried loudly, clinging to the darker mech despite himself. It wasn't, however, what finally sent him into recharge. Optronix pounded against him one last time, and with it, a wave of powerful, potent energy. It went straight to Starscream's CPU; the world began spinning violently out of control, throwing and tearing apart words and thoughts and images.

With one final exhale, Starscream fell boneless against the berth, optics flickering offline. Optronix laid in place, watched him for a minute. He sat back, casually tucking away all the disconnected wires and cords. He glanced down at the sleeping figure, at his exhausted, dim ember. For a split second, the idea of extinguishing his lifeforce crossed his mind, made his digits twitch. To introduce such nativity to a world of chaos seemed cruel and heartless.

Yet, breaking a mind of innocence and purity had endless, wonderful possibilities...

* * *

><p>END<p>

Les liaisons dangereuses translates into "dangerous liaisons".


End file.
